Homebrewing 101: UNH senior's mad scientist beer guide

First, a disclaimer: I am in no way a brewmaster with years of experience, or a resource who knows where to pluck the freshest hops from some secret location in the depths of Germany.

Like most people, I thought relative gravity referred to the force that draws you to your overweight cousin, and a “wort” was something that you got when you made out with a frog.

For too long, I was also under the misconception that the cheap, popular beer sold by the casefull was the best thing going, and as a college student I would gladly spend my hard-earned bucks on it every weekend.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Now having successfully completed gallon number 30 of my homemade brew, I can proudly say I have the vocabulary to look like a know-it-all snob whenever someone dares to say they are enjoying their “lite” beer at a party.

A domestic pilsner? Please. I’d rather enjoy one of my German stouts infused with a roasted chocolate malt and Willamette hops. Be my guest, try my American Pale Ale made with grains steeped in a muslin bag to ensure flavor distribution, balanced by a light barley malt syrup.

Where did everybody go?

I also know that for approximately the price of one case of the watery swill that rhymes with “spud fight,” you can have yourself five gallons of some of the freshest, best tasting brew you’ve ever experienced, and the bragging rights to say you’ve made it yourself.

Like anything worthwhile, the hobby does involve some patience. From the first step of boiling the ingredients together, creating what’s called wort (Learning is fun!) to finally pouring your creation into a glass, you will have to wait three or four weeks.

But it’s all worth it. Honest! Compared to how long babies take, it’s no time at all. And in the end, you will have about 50 beautiful, shining 12-ounce bottles, which you can share with your friends and family. Or drink all by yourself. Just don’t do it all at once.

So, where to begin? The novice brewmeister will want to pick up an all-inclusive brewer’s kit, available online or at some home and garden stores. The kit should include two food-grade buckets, plastic tubing, a hydrometer, and a uranium core. That last one was made up. Just making sure you’re still paying attention.

Once you’ve gotten home and taken all of those things out of the box, drive back to the store because you’ve forgotten to buy an ingredients kit. Ranging from amber ale to Irish stout, these kits will have any number of specialty ingredients that give your beer its distinct flavor. Generally, all kits will come with packages of hops and at least one can of malt.

Just when you think you might actually be getting to the brewing part, along comes one of the pains of the hobby: sanitization. Beer is very sensitive to the effects of bacterial invasion, and once something starts growing in your brew that shouldn’t be there, it’s game over.

Fortunately, sanitizing is relatively easy. Your kit will probably come with a bleach solution, but for future reference the recommended solution is two ounces of unscented chlorine bleach per five gallons of water. Simply immerse all pots, buckets, tubes, and anything that will come into immediate contact with your beer, and wait 15 minutes to let the bleach do its job. Rinse well.

Most of the basic ingredient kits will come with straightforward recipes and exact ingredient amounts, so you don’t have to worry too much when you start the boiling process. Just be careful when the wort starts to boil over. It happens fast, and it’s not very fun to have to clean your oven from the after-effects of a sudsy volcano. Or, you can opt not to clean it and everything you make will have a delicate hint of unfermented wort.

After allowing your mixture to cool, and explaining to the neighbors why the surrounding area suddenly smells like Milwaukee, a package of yeast is added to the mix in order to begin the magical process in which the fungus eats sugar from the malt and poops it out in the form of alcohol.

Although the buckets that come with the kit may look like they should be holding drywall, they are actually made of food-grade plastic, a material commonly used in cafeterias and restaurants.

One of these five-gallon beauties is the perfect size to allow your wort to sit and produce precious alcohol in a room-temperature area.

Fast forward one week. Your favorite person has been voted off that reality show you watch, so you’re feeling bummed out. Have hope! You can still bottle your beer, and that will take your mind off the pain for at least a little while.

After sanitizing all of your equipment, including all 50 brown longneck bottles (you remembered to buy those, right?), it’s time to transfer your mixture to the bottling bucket and start filling those empties.

As you transfer your beer into the bottling bucket, you will need to add the priming sugar, which will usually come with the ingredients kit. his sugar will give your yeast the boost it needs to start pumping out that carbonation.

When filling, stop the flow of beer into the bottle so it leaves about one inch of airspace between the cap and the beer. Overfilling can cause pressure to build and bottles to burst. And sticky shards of glass are usually not fun to clean out of the yogurt cups and meatloaf in your fridge.

Kits differ, but generally they will include a bottle capper. This nifty little device will take a fresh cap and squeeze it over the top of the glass bottle, creating a tight seal.

After all 50 bottles are promptly capped, you will put them back in a dark, room temperature spot and leave it for another two weeks, letting the yeast continue to do its thing. If you really can’t wait, try popping open a beer a week early to compare how it tastes to the finished product.

Finally, all of your perseverance and patience has paid off in spades, or at least in ounces. You can now tear off the cap, bring the bottle to your lips, and taste sweet victory.

Just kidding. Don’t really do that. There’s one more thing left.

Homebrewed beer will leave a natural layer of sediment on the bottom of the bottle, which is made up of little chunks of yeast and pieces of hop grain. You want to avoid drinking this, as it will give the beer a funky, bitter taste.

The preferred method is to tip a glass at a 45-degree angle and pour in the beer at a steady, continuous rate. When the glass is halfway full, bring it to a 90 degree angle and stop pouring when about a half inch of beer is left at the bottom of the bottle, or at least enough so that all of the sediment stays in.

As a side note, as you get into the hobby you will find that there are a huge amount of variations and adjustments you can make to tailor your beer to your own individual taste.

Like any hobby, there are some enthusiasts out there who will turn up their nose at a kit-made product, and insist on taking hydrometer readings and using glass carboys to get that perfect flavor.

While these are certainly credible methods, it has been my experience that using the kits are a great way to get started. After you make a few batches, you will likely want to use more in-depth methods that give you more control over your end product.

Although it may have been a long journey, the final product more than makes up for the trouble. And don’t hold back if you’d like to send a sample six-pack to me. Strictly for testing and research, of course.

Dan Lorenz is an intern at Seacoast Media Group in Portsmouth, N.H. He can be reached at dlorenz@seacoastonline.com.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.

Advertise

Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted.
seacoastonline.com ~ 111 New Hampshire Ave., Portsmouth, NH 03801 ~ Privacy Policy ~ Terms Of Service